106 Mr. J, Taylor on Mr. Schoolcraft's *' Account of the [Jan, 



Article XIII. 



Observations on Mr. Schoolcraft^s " Accoimt of the Native 

 Copper on the Sonthern Shore of Lake Superior, with Histori- 

 cal Citations and Miscellaneous Remarks, ^c." By John 

 Taylor, Esq. MGS. Mining Engineer. 



(To the Editor of the Annals of Philosophy.) 



SIR, 



It appears from the information detailed by Mr. School- 

 craft, that specimens of native copper, varying in weight from 

 a few pounds, have been at various times found on the shore 

 of Lake Superior. Mr. S. says: 



"The first appearances of copper are seen on the head of thfe 

 portage across Keweena point, two hundred and seventy miles 

 beyond the Sault de St. Marie, where the pebbles along the 

 shf^re of the lake contain native copper disseminated in parti- 

 cles varying in size from a grain of sand to a lump of two 

 pounds weight. Many of the detached stones at this place 

 are also coloured green by the carbonate of copper, and the 

 rock strata in the vicinity exhibit traces of the same ore. 

 These indications continue to the river Ontonagon, which has 

 long been noted for the large masses of native copper found 

 upon its banks, and about the contiguous country. This river 

 (called Dona gon on Mellish's Map) is one of the largest of thirty 

 tributaries which flow into the lake between Point Iroquois and 

 the Fond du Lac. It originates in a district of mountainous 

 country intermediate between the Mississippi river and the 

 lakes Huron and Superior, and after runnmg in a northern 

 direction for one hundred and twenty miles, enters the latter at 

 the distance of fifty one miles west of Point Keweena, in 

 north latitude 46° 52' 2" according to the observations of Capt. 

 Douglass. It is connected by portages with the Menomonie 

 river of Green Bay, and with the Chippeway river of the Mis- 

 sissippi, routes of communication occasionally travelled by the 

 Indians in canoes. At its mouth there is a village of Chippe- 

 way Indians of sixteen families, who subsist chiefly on the 

 ri&h (sturgeon) taken in the river; and whose location, inde- 

 pendently of that circumstance, does not appear to unite tne 

 ordinary advantages of Indian villages in that region. A strip 

 of alluvial land of a sandy character extends from the lake up 

 the river three or four leagues, where it is succeeded by high 

 broken hills of a sterile aspect and covered chiefly by a growth 

 of pine, hemlock, and spruce. Among these hills, which may 

 be considered as lateral spurs of the Porcupine mountains, the 

 Copper Mines, so called, are situated, at the distance of thirty 



